Stiff Pens????????

[Hit-n-Miss]

Anybody ever hear of eating them? Our scout troop went to St Joe to scallop and could not find any. But they found hundreds of Stiff pens. They say they are better than scallops. Are there any regs on them?

[wevans]

Pen shells have a scallop-like adductor muscle (the muscle that opens and closes the shells) and are edible. They also produce black pearls which may be used in jewelry. Pen shells in the Mediterranean (Mediterranean pen shells) were harvested for their byssal threads, which were woven into an expensive cloth.
http://marinelife.about.com/od/inverteb ... -shell.htm

[bman]

We used to keep a few when I was a kid... tougher meat than a scallop but still tastes good.
I feel like they grow slow and always felt a little bad about keeping them. No science behind that- Just a gut thing.

[big bend gyrene]

I feel like they grow slow and always felt a little bad about keeping them. No science behind that- Just a gut thing.

So Bman, let me get this straight... since the bay scallop is unfortunate enough to have a sadly shorter lifespan that makes it RIPE FOR A GOOD OLD FASHIONED KILLING, RIGHT?!!!

[big bend gyrene]

Above joking aside, does appear that the lifespan is almost certainly longer. Quick google search indicated that few if any scientist have studied how long our pen shells live but that similar Australian ones have been shown to live about 5 years (to the scallops single year lifespan).

[Hit-n-Miss]

Up until today I would not even think they were edible. I have not seen any live ones while scalloping. Except one being eaten by a conch.